Pacific Gas and Electric executive Brian Cherry, whose prolific emailing exposed a corruption ring at the Public Utilities Commission, has received immunity from the US government as it prosecutes its case against PG&E for obstruction of justice in the wake of the San Bruno gas explosion in 2010.

Here’s a news flash that’s probably causing a lot of sleepless nights among Governor Brown’s inner circle: The central figure in the PUC corruption scandal, PG&E lobbyist Brian Cherry, is now a witness for the US government, in the case against PG&E over the San Bruno explosion.

Before the federal case against PG&E over San Bruno was delayed, the witness list turned over by the Justice Department included Cherry as one of its own witnesses.

During Governor Jerry Brown’s days in Paris attending climate negotiations, he called for nothing less than a revolutionary shift away from “this heavy commodification of our entire existence.” What drives that commodification, he said, is individualism and oil. What’s needed is “a life not based on oil, and a life not based on so much emphasis on the individual as opposed to the common good.”